PAN

in Greek mythology, a fertility deity, more or less bestial in form. He was associated by the Romans with Faunus (q.v.). Originally an Arcadian deity, his name is a Doric contraction of paon (pasturer) but was commonly supposed in antiquity to be connected with pan (all). His father was usually said to be Hermes; but, because his mother was often named Penelope (probably not the wife of Odysseus but commonly identified with her), one or another of the characters in the Odyssey was sometimes called his father. Pan was generally represented as a vigorous and lustful figure having the horns, legs, and ears of a goat; in later art the human parts of his form were much more emphasized. He haunted the high hills, and his chief concern was with flocks and herds, not with agriculture; hence he can make humans, like cattle, stampede in panic terror. Like a shepherd, he was a piper and he rested at noon. Pan was insignificant in literature, aside from Hellenistic bucolic, but he was a very common subject in ancient art. His rough figure was antithetical to, for example, that of Apollo, who represented culture and sophistication.